Springfield flora subject of upcoming Naturalists' Club talk

Invasive species seem to be taking a toll on native plants in the Springfield area, according to the findings of David Lovejoy of the Springfield Naturalists Club.

While that discovery is not very surprising, Lovejoy will present other interesting discoveries he made while researching and writing his book, “Vascular Flora of Springfield, Massachusetts,” during a Naturalists’ Club talk entitled “Springfield Flora Then and Now – 100 Years of Change.”

Lovejoy will give his talk, including slides, beginning on March 16 at 7:30 at the Springfield Science Museum’s Tolman Auditorium. The talk is free and open to the public.

Lovejoy, a biology professor at Westfield State University, spent a good part of six years surveying the city to record all of its current plant species.

Lovejoy was prompted to do the research to compare current findings to those of Connecticut naturalist Luman Andrews, who studied Springfield flora in the early 20th century. Andrews’ “Catalogue of the Flowering Plants and Ferns of Springfield, Massachusetts,” was published by the Springfield Museum of Natural History (now the Science Museum) in 1924.

Lovejoy said he made about 500 visits around the city during the summers of 2001 through 2007 and recorded what he found.

“I think everybody knows there are going to be changes as development happens, and as native plants get driven out of their habitats and as bogs get filled in, so we really just wanted to see how much change there had been in 100 years,” he said.

After compiling the data, it took Lovejoy about a year to analyze it and put his book together, which was also published by the Springfield Science Museum, in 2008.

Lovejoy said invasive species such as oriental bittersweet, multiflora rose, barberry and tree of heaven, have had a major effect on native species.”The ones that are enormous problems now weren’t even known in the city in the early 1900s,” he said.

Some species – those which may have been rare, and those which live in ponds or bogs – have also taken a hit over the years.

“There’s a fern family called grape ferns, and there were six native species recorded by Andrews in Springfield,” Lovejoy said. “They’re all gone. I did a lot of searching.”

Species that depend on specific habitats, such as wetlands, have also been affected by development over the years. Some of the habitats, such as small ponds, now no longer exist in Springfield.